[Canada] Our journalists are facing more harassment, threats for doing their jobs

URL	https://Persagen.com/docs/journalism-safety_of_journalists-canada_2022-02.html	Le Convoi de la liberté [Freedom Convoy 2022] près du Parlement du Canada à Ottawa en février 2022. [source]
Sources	Persagen.com \| other sources (cited in situ)
Source URL	https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editor-note-pandemic-protests-media-experience-1.6343672
Title	[Canada] Our journalists are facing more harassment, threats for doing their jobs
Subtitle	Erosion of trust in journalism has a real impact on the people who do it, and by extension, those we serve
Author	Brodie Fenlon, editor in chief and executive director of daily news for CBC News.
Date published	2022-02-08
Curation date	2022-02-08
Curator	Dr. Victoria A. Stuart, Ph.D.
Modified
Editorial practice	Refer here \| Date format: yyyy-mm-dd
Summary	As vaccine-mandate protests rolled into Ottawa [Freedom Convoy 2022], CBC News took extra measures to ensure the safety of our journalists covering these events. We reduced our visibility and hired extra security. We identified fallback positions for our reporters and field crews. We conducted risk assessments for each deployment. These precautions were warranted: we've seen multiple examples over the last several weeks of our teams and other Canadian media being verbally harassed, threatened and intimidated simply for doing the job of journalism.
Main article	Freedom Convoy 2022
Related	Alt-right movement Conservatism Conservatism in Canada Conservative Party of Canada Neofascism Republican Party [United States] Freedom Convoy 2022 Far-right politics People's Party of Canada Right-wing politics
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Background

As vaccine-mandate protests [Freedom Convoy 2022] rolled into Ottawa - and later other cities this past weekend [2022-02-{05-06}] - CBC News took extra measures to ensure the safety of our journalists covering these events . We reduced our visibility and hired extra security. We identified fallback positions for our reporters and field crews. We conducted risk assessments for each deployment.

These precautions were warranted. We've seen multiple examples over the last several weeks of our teams and other Canadian media being verbally harassed, threatened, and intimidated simply for doing the job of journalism

This is not to paint all protesters with the same brush. Many protesters have demonstrated peacefully, though some have tested the patience of residents and business owners whose lives have been seriously disrupted, partly by the blaring of horns, leading to a temporary injunction to silence them in Ottawa.

A number of protesters spoke to our reporters and camera operators, offering important insight on their motivations. We have endeavoured to report on all of it with accuracy and balance. Indeed, the protests are just one expression of the frustration and more widely shared concerns by some across Canada about the disruptive impact of COVID-19 containment policies on people's lives and businesses. The onus is on us to reflect, report and challenge all sides of this issue.

But it is also true that many of the protesters harbour a deep and growing distrust of news organizations like ours, mirroring their distrust of the consensus public health opinion, government policy and other institutions. And there is a growing segment of Canadians who are actively hostile and menacing when they encounter journalists. This hostility extends online. Some disturbing abuse has appeared in our inboxes and social media feeds, threatening our staff with arrest, graphic violence and extra-judicial trials. References to treason and Nuremberg [Nuremberg trials] are common. The dialogue is rife with allegations of conspiracy and "fake news."

We tend not to share these experiences with audiences because we never want to make ourselves the focus of the story. We work hard to carefully guard our journalism against self-interest.

Growing Intolerance

It's important to understand how the growing intolerance of journalism is playing out in this country [Canada] and making it more challenging for us to report the news, and to see that Canada is not immune to the same forces that have propelled distrust and disinformation to peak levels in other parts of the world. We have our own work to do, of course. Every day, we reflect on the things we do that may contribute to distrust in our journalism: careless mistakes or a lack of precision that results in public clarifications, corrections and ombudsman reviews; the missing voices and perspectives that leave some people feeling excluded from our coverage; and the unconscious biases we must understand and work to overcome.

But there are many external factors at play as well. Chipping away at the trust in journalism in Canada are opinion-makers and personalities who nurture conspiracy theories with phrases such as "What the media don't want you to know," or who make broad generalizations about "legacy media" ["old media"] or "mainstream media". Some alternative media websites exploit the "mainstream media/fake news" narrative to drive their own business and political interests. Disinformation, designed to sow anger and distrust of news media is common - such as this recently faked CBC News story. Social media platforms are slow to remove harassment and disinformation aimed at journalists.

There is no democracy without a strong news media. While the safety of our teams in the field and online remains a top priority, our commitment to journalism and truth telling has not wavered. As the public broadcaster, we will not be intimidated or step back from our commitment to independent, fact-based journalism and the public service mandate that drives all of our work. But it's important for you to know what we are encountering on the ground. At stake are the press and media freedoms guaranteed under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the very same section that guarantees protesters the right to assemble and the right to demonstrate peacefully.

[Aside] Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("the Charter") is the section of the Constitution of Canada that lists what the Charter calls "fundamental freedoms" theoretically applying to everyone in Canada, regardless of whether they are a Canadian citizen, an individual, or corporation. These freedoms can be held against actions of all levels of government and are enforceable by the courts. The fundamental freedoms are:

Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms permits the Parliament of Canada or the provincial legislatures to enact laws that place certain kinds of limited restrictions on the freedoms listed under Section 2. Additionally, these freedoms can be temporarily invalidated by Section 33, the "notwithstanding clause", of the Charter.

As a part of the Charter and of the larger Constitution Act, 1982, Section 2 took legal effect on 1982-04-17. However, many of its rights have roots in Canada in the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights (although this law was of limited effectiveness), and in traditions under a theorized Implied Bill of Rights. Many of these exemptions, such as freedom of expression, have also been at the centre of federal disputes [Canadian federalism].